


Got the Bit Between Your Teeth

by InitialA



Series: Storybrooke Downs [5]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horse Racing, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Sports, Eating Disorders, Gen, Horses, Manipulation, Running, Teen Angst, Teenage Drama, Teenagers, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-20
Updated: 2015-06-20
Packaged: 2018-04-05 07:42:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4171590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InitialA/pseuds/InitialA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since Graham's death, Henry has been in a sort of rut. He turns to running as an escape, but it doesn't hurt when it might help him achieve his jockey dreams.</p>
<p>Set during chapters 11-13 of <i>Dark Horse</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Got the Bit Between Your Teeth

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the Storybrooke Downs series. It doesn't really make much sense out of context of the series. This takes place from June 1-30 in _Dark Horse_.
> 
> Trigger warnings: eating disorders and unhealthy weight management, dealing with trauma resulting from death. In general, just brace yourselves, this deals with some very heavy material.

Henry's feet slap against the not-quite-dirt-not-quite-mud of the practice oval. His work boots are caked in it, sucking against the mud as he frees himself with every push forward.  _Mom's gonna be so mad when she sees my clothes_ , he thinks as he labors for breath. He's splattered with mud up to his knees.

He'd decided around the first turn that Killian didn't suggest running as an alternative way of losing weight or staying in shape. This was definitely a punishment for breaking the rules.

He's on his second lap of the mile-long oval and his lungs are  _on fire_. He doesn't know if it's because he's that out of shape - gym class was during fall semester - or if it's from the cigarette Killian caught him with. He hopes it's not the cigarette already.  _That_ was a stupid idea - serves him right for listening to the internet. But he's only run a mile and a half, they did more in gym class, he shouldn't be this tired! He just needs to push himself, make it the rest of the way and then he can stop…

Five minutes later, Henry's laying on the grass, breathing hard and coughing. His feet are killing him from running in his boots, while his legs feel like they're made of Jell-O. His stomach rebels, even though he ate hours ago, and he can only just roll over in time before he's spitting up bile. He rolls onto his back with a grimace, covering his eyes with his arm. This is the worst.  _The worst._  How did people do this  _every day_?  _For fun_?

But he  _does_ want to get in shape, lose the weight for school. Yeah, there's apprentice allowances, but it's better if he stays ahead of the curve, right? Maybe he should join the cross country team in the fall. They ran forever. But then he'd spend less time at the farm…  _Emma's always saying I should do something besides horse stuff_ , he thinks, too tired to feel annoyed at the the thought of his Big Sister, like he has every day for more than a month.  _She might get off my case if I do an extracurricular_.

It's something to think about, anyway.

And it's  _got_ to be better than skimping on meals - though the kids he shares his lunch with at school appreciate the extra food for them. He's had an almost permanent headache for about two weeks now, which probably explains why he got a C-minus on his last math test - who can focus on parallel and perpendicular lines when their head hurts? He's felt sick and tired for days. Even just eating dinner with Mom, Robin and Roland in the evenings isn't enough, but he's so tired by the end of the day that he manages to sleep off the hunger pangs that creep in.

When he finally doesn't feel so much like an overcooked noodle, Henry struggles for a moment to get to his feet. He wobbles more than walks back to the stables, and he's so out of it that it's not much of a surprise to see Emma standing in the doorway of Killian's office. When she waves at him, Henry just nods, unsure why she's here. They haven't talked for weeks, why would she show up and act like nothing had happened? Like she hadn't gone ballistic on him when all he'd been trying to do was vent about Mom and Dr. Hopper overreacting. Emma's always been his safe place, the person he can talk to about anything, but then  _she'd_  overreacted and everything was just really, really screwed up. She'd proven him wrong, and he's not sure if he can trust her right now.

As he gets closer, he hears Emma tell Killian " _Maybe"_  before she turns and smiles. "Hey, kid."

"Hi," he says warily. "Why are you here?"

She's not dressed like she wants to take him anywhere. He kinda suspects she'd been spending all day in her pajamas before this: usually her hair was only like that when they'd had movie nights when he was a kid, and she'd let him get one of those giant boxes of candy from the rental place (and made him pinky-promise not to tell Mom, but he's pretty sure Mom knew about it). Now, Emma shrugs. "Killian couldn't get ahold of Robin or Regina, so he called me to take you home. Said you'd had kind of a weird day."

Oh God, Killian probably told her everything. Traitor. Now she'd want to  _talk_  about it, wouldn't she? "I guess," Henry deflects, shoving his hands in his pockets.

She raises one eyebrow. He knows he's being stubborn almost on principle, but he's too tired to really care. Emma jerks her head in a beckoning motion. "C'mon, kid, let's get you home."

"Alright."

He nods at Killian as they pass the office door, and then he follows Emma out to her Bug. He knows why she got one of the new models, but he does kinda miss the coolness of the old '72 Bug. He only remembers the year because one time he helped Neal replace the spark plugs, and they spent half the time looking at the manual. And now he's thinking about Neal and his chest hurts again, and he's got that weird pain in his neck from thinking about how Graham had died and -

He needs to get out of here.

Henry picks up his pace, rushing past Emma in his haste to get to the car. "Where's the fire?" she asks, unlocking it.

"Can we just go? Please?" Henry asks sharply, throwing the door open and getting in. It shouldn't feel so good to slam the door shut, but it does.

Emma gets in and starts the engine, and to her credit she doesn't say anything for about ten minutes. Henry stares out the window during the drive, not really seeing anything, trying to breathe and empty his thoughts like Dr. Hopper taught him to when things get overwhelming like this. It's not working - the only thing that's taking up his mind is the memory of getting to the stables that morning before school to help with morning chores and Will and Smee trying to hold him back before he saw anything. But he was taller than Smee and could see over him, and the way Graham was spread-eagle on the floor and his head -

Henry squeezes his eyes shut, trying to breathe normally so Emma doesn't suspect anything.  _My name is Henry Daniel Mills. I'm fifteen years old. I'm just finishing my freshman year of high school. I have a mom, a stepdad, and a stepbrother. I have a Big Sister. This is her car. It's yellow. I'm mad at her. My shirt is green and my jeans are covered in mud. Mom's going to kill me later for getting my clothes so dirty. Roland wants to play a video game with me after dinner._

He continues on this train of thought, listing everything he knows to be true and hoping it calms his heart rate down. He doesn't notice right away when the car stops and Emma's hand is on his shoulder. "Henry. Henry, look at me," she's saying, her voice firm.

He opens his eyes.

They're at the beach again. It's as deserted in June as it was back in April, but it's been raining and chilly so that's not unusual. Henry takes a few deep breaths and looks at Emma's worried face. "C'mon, let's go talk," she says, unbuckling her seatbelt.

He doesn't want to talk, but he doesn't want to sit in the car and get swamped with memories again, so he gets out and follows her down the beach. They both take off their shoes, leaving them at the foot shower stand; the sand is cold and a little bit damp, and it's actually kind of working to make the pains in his chest go away. It's weird but it's comforting, and the cold breeze coming in from the ocean is nice too. Henry breathes deep again, letting the smell of brine calm him.

When they sit, Emma doesn't say anything. She burrows her feet under the sand and starts piling more on top, decorating the pile with seashells. Henry watches, reminded of the time they came here when he was a kid and she buried him in the sand and made the pile look like a mermaid. She'd decorated that with seashells too and taken a picture; Mom still has that picture on the fridge at home, nine-year old Henry grinning at him from under a seashell bra and shell-studded tail every morning when he grabbed an apple from the drawer.

"You're just going to sit there until I start talking, aren't you?" Henry asks finally.

Emma shrugs. "Works on me when David does it."

Henry glares at her, but she's not looking at him, she's looking out at the water. He'll show her it's not going to work - Dr. Hopper always just talked at him until Henry broke, telling him all sorts of weird stories that he's never sure has a point until he gets home and figures out the anecdote himself. Silence suits him just fine.

He lasts fifteen minutes. "I'm still mad at you," Henry says finally.

"Okay," Emma says.

The look he throws her is incredulous. "That's it? Just 'okay'? No defense, no layered argument on why I shouldn't be mad?"

She smiles in that way she gets when she thinks he's funny but she doesn't want to laugh. "Alright, lawyer's kid. You're allowed to be mad at me. I might not like it, and I'm mad at you too, but you're allowed to feel stuff."

Henry frowns. That doesn't seem right. "Why are you mad at me?"

She shrugs. "Because I thought you were a smart kid, and then you went and said all that dumb crap. And maybe I should be more mad at me for forgetting that you're still a kid, but it's easier to be mad at you. I don't know."

Oh. "That's stupid," Henry says. "And I'm not a kid anymore. I'm gonna get my permit in the fall. I wanted to get it this summer but Mom said with Robin being gone it'll be better to wait."

Shit, now he's  _talking_  about stuff. Even though she's been back a few months, he still forgets how easy it is to just  _talk_  to Emma and tell her everything. It wasn't the same when she was in New York or Florida, when they only talked on the phone every couple of days or sent emails. Emma sighs. "Your mom's right about that. Better to wait until there's two cars, so if you crash the one there's a spare." She shoots him a look out of the corner of her eye and he glares at her again. She laughs this time. "I know you don't feel like a kid. So maybe I should've said 'I thought you were a smart young adult', but whatever. You get my point."

Henry snorts, wiggling his toes in the cold sand. "Still."

"How was the trip to the academy?"

He glances up at her. "Who told you about that?"

"David."

That's right, the Nolans had been in Kentucky for the Derby too. Henry had been too preoccupied from getting to meet Victor Espinoza and Joe Bravo, or seeing Gary Stevens and Javier Castellano down the block to remember much about the dinner his family had gone to with the Nolans. "It was okay."

It had been more than okay. He hasn't been in a lot of different facilities, but even he could tell this was on the high end. The scenery was one thing - rolling hills studded with white fences, horses grazing and chasing each other as far as he could see, practice ovals with hard-packed dirt. The stables were huge, several times the size of the Horn - and the Horn wasn't a small operation by any means - filled with students grooming or caring for the animals. The horses themselves weren't in peak condition by any means, but that was okay. They were still close to their prime: headstrong, handsome mares and geldings with that fire to win in their eyes. The training facilities were also mind-boggling; not only did they have the standard riding and training rings, but there were rooms filled with dummy horses to practice your racing form. There were exercise rooms and classes offered for things like yoga or Zumba or whatever other limbering-up exercise fad was taking over.

Henry hadn't wanted to leave.

Emma's watching him now with a kind of sad look, one eyebrow raised a bit. "Only okay?"

_I'm mad at her. She got pissed off at me for no reason_ , Henry tells himself when his heart wants him to go on and on about the time there and how much he wants it. "Yeah," he says aloud.

"So you still want to go?"

More than anything. "Yeah, I do," he says.

She nods. "Okay."

Henry narrows his eyes. Again, it seems like it's all too simple, like she's stepping back and waiting for him to mess up and say 'I told you so' when it's all over.  _That's not Emma,_  a voice in his head says, but he ignores it. "Seriously, no arguments at all?"

Emma sighs. "Henry, I don't want to fight with you. I'm tired of fighting. I miss my Little Brother. I just want to talk, find out what's up. Maybe ask why you were running around the track, but I feel like if I ask that you're going to do that defensive brush-off thing I perfected when you were still in diapers."

He wants to argue that, but she has a point. No one could shut someone down like she could, he's seen that enough just when she and Mom argue - and Mom's  _really_  good at shutting people down. "Killian told me to do laps," he says instead, grabbing a piece of driftwood and drawing in the sand.

She chuckles. "What'd you do to piss him off?"

"Dozed off in the hayloft," he lies easily. It's not even that big of a lie, he  _had_  fallen asleep last week and not gotten punished for it then.

She hums in disbelief but doesn't push it. "Maybe spend less time romancing Jasmine -"

"Josephine," he corrects her automatically.

"Whatever. Less Dragon Age, more dream age."

"Yeah, okay,  _mom_ ," Henry scoffs.

She gives him that disbelieving look again. "So how many laps did he make you do?"

He shrugs, wondering how far down the line of questioning she's going to go. He's stuck it out through Mom in lawyer-mode, though, so he should be able to outlast Emma. "He didn't say, just said start running. I did two. It sucked  _so_  bad."

"Two miles will do that to you."

"I thought maybe if I joined the cross country team, it might help me get better at it," Henry blurts out. He tries not to wince when he realizes he's just kind of thrown it out there with no kind of build up, but maybe since they're far enough from the subject of the academy Emma won't suspect. He can't read the look on her face, but from the speed at which she turned her head, he knows she's not entirely happy with the idea.

"Cross country? Why that all of a sudden?" Emma asks.

She doesn't sound panicked, but there's a note there that has him treading cautiously into his answer. "Well, Killian said running helps you get stronger. I'll need that when I go to school - and you're always nagging me to do other things than hang out at the farm all day."

Her mouth twists, not quite a frown but it's not a happy look either. "And this has nothing to do with how the jocks run a lap every morning before racing, right?"

Shit. She's definitely on to him. "Not really? I mean, I just guess it would help. And again, less time at the track, more time with people my age, right? I know Mom's not entirely thrilled that half my texts are to Will."

Emma rolls her eyes at that. "God, please tell me he's not a complete idiot and remembers you're half his age."

"He says something about catching birds a lot, but he doesn't talk about sex or drinking, if that's what you mean," Henry says and kind of smiles when Emma looks like she's about to go kill Will.

She destroys her little sand castle when she unearths her feet. "Remind me to have a stern talking-to with Will Scarlet next time I see him," she mutters. Henry  _does_  grin at that, because while he's not a fan of Emma's lecturing at him, it is kinda fun to watch someone else get torn apart by her. And this would definitely not be the first 'stern talking-to' Will would get from her. She sighs again. "Well, I guess joining a team sport isn't a terrible idea. Better than the football team for sure - I'm pretty sure if I encouraged that, your Mom would make sure that with every concussion you got, I'd get one to match."

He laughs, relief spreading through him as she doesn't question it any further. It doesn't matter that he's never had any interest in football or team sports before, she sees the other benefits, the good ones. "Grace is on the team," Henry says. "The girls' team, I mean."

Emma smiles slyly. "Oh, your mystery lady?"

He scoffs. "She's not a mystery lady, she's my friend. So I'm not just joining and not knowing anyone. I'll know her."

"Storybrooke isn't that big of a school, kid, you'll know other people."

"Yeah, but like, know. Friends and stuff." He doesn't have too many friends, and that's okay. He doesn't mind it. He spends too much time at the stables to do whatever people his age did in Storybrooke. The friends he does have understand that and they hang out other times. "Grace can help me figure out how to join the team, the season starts in August."

Emma nods. "Good plan, kid. School's over this week, right?"

"Wednesday," Henry says with a sigh. "Three whole days and then freedom. They ran out of stuff to teach us last week so they started running MHSA drills. We don't take the test for two years and they're overloading us with practice papers."

They talk for another hour or so, conversation successfully steering away from anything potentially dangerous, and Henry takes some pride in that. Emma's pretty hard to distract - let alone outright lie to - when she puts her mind to it, but maybe she felt too guilty about causing their fight to put up much of a fuss about it. And it's nice, being able to unload his smaller problems on her again and talking things out.

He won't admit it out loud, but he did miss her.

Mom seems a little surprised when Emma drops him off later, but he goes in the house to wash up while Emma talks to her. He's sure there'll be questions at dinner, but he can avoid those too.

* * *

He's in luck at school on Monday. Grace tells him that team sign-ups aren't over yet, and takes him to meet with the coach at lunch. Coach seems to be sizing him up as they talk, and finally hands him a training schedule. "Work on that until camp," he says. "It helps if you have a running buddy, but do your best to stick to that schedule until the big camp in August and you should do fine, Henry."

The schedule tells him how often he should run each day, and for how long. There's team runs every other afternoon during the week, but nothing is mandatory. There's also a suggested nutrition guide on the back. "Thanks, Coach," Henry says.

Coach Rupert is the chemistry teacher - Henry won't have him until junior year, so he doesn't know him well. He seems nice though. "Good to have you aboard, Henry. You two should go get some lunch before the bell," he says, nodding to Grace.

"Thanks, Coach!" she says with a grin, and Henry follows her out. They made their way down the stairs to the lunchroom. "Did you want to go running this afternoon?" Grace asks. "I know the schedule doesn't start until next week, but you'll be surprised how much an extra week helps."

Henry thinks about it for a moment, then nods. "Yeah. I'll just have to tell Killian I'll be coming in later. I have irons to polish and stuff."

She giggles, nudging him with her elbow. "I thought you were learning to train horses, not clean up after them."

He shrugs, feeling his cheeks warm. He's always kind of avoided details of what he did at the farm, not wanting her - or any of his friends, really - to think less of him. "Killian says there's a lot more to it than just teaching them how to listen to what you want them to do. That it's not fair to learn one part of the job and leave out the rest. And sometimes there's only you to handle the care, the training, and the cleaning, so if you're going to do it, you need to do it right. Graham said it, too."

His neck feels funny again, thinking about Graham. His chest feels tight until Grace nudges him again, bringing him out of his thoughts. He thinks she looks worried, but a second later she's tossing her blonde hair over her shoulder. "Makes sense. So, we running later or not?"

Maybe running would help him stop thinking about Graham too. "Yeah," Henry agrees.

* * *

School finally ends and summer begins. Normally, Henry would spend most of the day at the Horn - summer meant extra time with the horses, extra time learning their secrets. This summer, though, he finds himself splitting his time between the Horn and the rest of Storybrooke. It's amazing that he's lived here his entire life and only now seeing how much of it he's missed.

Grace is usually with him as they run down back alleys and side streets Henry's never thought to go down before. There's a small house with empty milk jugs strung from the trees, every one of them covered in swear words. There's a red light over the side door and newspaper clippings covering all the windows, and Grace swears the woman who lives there is a witch. On another street is a house with a yard that's constantly covered in plastic flamingos. The grass never seems to get any higher, and sometimes Henry and Grace spend their run debating if they take down and replace the flamingos every time the grass needs cut or if they just use shears and cut around them.

Then there's the woods. There's a playground that was built when they were ten, but other than that Henry's never spent much time in the forest. But Grace says it's great for practicing hill work (and there's a weird amount of hills for coastal Maine) and practicing how to keep your footing in uneven terrain.

By that she means "learn how not to trip over your own feet." It takes Henry a few runs and a few falls on his face to figure that out.

By the time Robin leaves for his research trip in the middle of June, Henry feels like he knows most of Storybrooke like the back of his hand.

He runs the oval too. He's figured out a schedule by now, Mom dropping him off at the Horn when she takes Roland to the Nolan's in the mornings. He does his morning run on the oval, then gets to work. Instead of taking a lunch like the other guys, Henry does another lap or two on the oval. Maybe he'll eat an apple or something, but most of the time running in the heat of the day just makes him feel sick. On afternoons when the team practices, Will or Mr. Smee usually take him to the meeting point. (He likes it when Will takes him, because Will's got a killer sound system and he always has some British punk band playing. Mr. Smee always has something boring like NPR.) On the other afternoons, he'll work until it's time for the day crew to leave and one of the guys will take him into town to meet with Grace.

It's a good system.

One afternoon near the end of June, Henry's stretching after his lunchtime run. He doesn't feel like throwing up today - even though it's hot as hell - and he guesses that's a good thing. His water bottle is warm, which sucks, but at this point anything will do. He figures he's got some time to sit in the tack room and catch his breath before going back to work, but when he walks through the stable doors he runs smack into someone. "Oh man, I'm sorry -" Henry says, stumbling back and looking up. He freezes.

Mr. Gold looks a little stunned, but then he relaxes into a kind of smile. "Henry. Energetic as always, though I would have thought with all the running around you've been doing you'd be too tired."

Henry shrugs, feeling wary. Emma never liked Mr. Gold too much - and Mom had said that Emma'd actually punched him a few months ago - but Mr. Gold always treated him alright. He was always a little weird, but Henry thought that was just a rich old guy thing: Mr. Malcolm was a weirdo too. "Getting better," Henry answers. "I've never done cross country before, so I figured I needed to catch up to everyone else."

Mr. Gold nods. "Good man, realizing a weakness and working to strengthen it."

What a weird thing to say. "Thanks," Henry says, taking another drink.

There's an awkward pause for a moment, then Mr. Gold shifts his weight off his bad leg. "How are your ambitions for the academy going?" he asks.

Henry blinks. "Uh, alright, I guess? Mom wants me to finish high school still, and Emma says the same thing. And she says I should weigh all my options, but that's the only way to become a jock, right?"

The sun's getting a little hot on the back of his neck, but Henry thinks it might be rude to dump his water bottle on his head right now. The heat's making him a little dizzy too. Mr. Gold looks thoughtful. "Henry, what would you think if I pulled some information from my contacts in the jockey associations? Or if I introduced you to some people who could help you?"

Henry almost drops his water bottle. "No way," he says.

Mr. Gold grins. " _Yes_  way," he says, his tone almost teasing. "Despite your mother and Miss Swan's claims to the contrary, there is more than one way to become a jockey. All it takes is the right word to the right person."

"You'd do that for me?"

For a moment, he was silent, watching the ground thoughtfully, kind of sad. "I can't help my boy," Mr. Gold said finally. "Not anymore. He's a man grown and made his decisions. But perhaps I can still help you, Henry, and get you what you want."

_What I want…_  A breeze picks up, blessedly cool on Henry's warm neck, and it doesn't take much to imagine the wind in his face as he's racing around the track, a powerful horse under him, speeding to the finish line ahead of all the others.

He wants that.

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I'd really appreciate that, Mr. Gold."

Mr. Gold holds out his hand, and it takes Henry a moment to realize he's supposed to shake on it. "Let's keep this between ourselves for the time being," Mr. Gold says. "It'll take a little time to get in touch with the right people, and the last thing either of us needs is your...  _charming_ mother hovering until she has to."

Henry has to laugh at that, because he's right. Mom would totally take over the situation, running background checks and calling every precinct in the tri-state area for dirt on Mr. Gold's associates. Mom's thorough like that. "Fine by me," Henry says.

"Good. Well, then, I think I've kept you from your work long enough. Far be it from me to keep you from the wonders of shoveling manure, or bringing on the wrath of Mr. Jones," Mr. Gold says, and awkwardly pats Henry on the shoulder before trudging up the driveway to his car.

Henry glances over his shoulder once before heading into the shade of the stables. He can't keep the grin off his face, not even when Mr. Smee calls down the row that Henry's late coming back. He's going to be a jockey!


End file.
